After working on the songs I spoke about in my previous posts for a few days, I decided they weren't for me. They didn't feel right and I think that they could potentially be a songs for another artist, instead of for myself.
After UNI on Monday I sat in Queens Park and played around with some chord ideas - I took some of the chords from both of the compositions I have posted about previously, and combined them/added more chords to create an entirely new song. From there I hummed melodies over the top until I found something that I really liked. When I got home I started writing some lyrics (shown on the left) which I carried on doing in my Songcraft lesson on Tuesday.
Then, I brought my idea to the house band in LPW and it went really well; everyone loved the song! One safety hazard I spotted whilst on stage was a bunch of wires tangled up on the floor. I had to move them out of the way with my foot so I could stand in front of the mic, and looking back on it, it would've been good to tape down the wires, or have them in a way that was less dangerous for the people on stage.
Here is my reflection for the Formative Assignment:
Before writing this composition, I listened to a bunch of my favourite Radiohead songs as the source for my inspiration. In his writing, Thom Yorke uses a lot of metaphors and very odd, descriptive lyrics which set the scene really well, whilst still leaving some ambiguity for the listener to interpret them however they like. Another thing that he does is transition from major to minor chords a lot, so I tried to incorporate this into my writing.
This song is about the feeling of misplacement and confusion; when everything feels as if it is in the wrong place and you do not know why, or how to fix it. The title is “Back Against the Wall” which, portrays this idea very well. You would assume I am talking about having your back against the wall; however, it is actually about wanting everything that has been ‘misplaced’ back where it belongs. In the pre-chorus, this is shown repeatedly through the lyrics: ‘Can you tell right from wrong at all? It’s all fallen into place, its back. Do you want it back? Do you want it back? Do you want it bad? Will you wrong it?’ ‘Are people acting how they should? You misplaced it now it’s sad, it’s gone inside, it’s gone, it’s sad. This home is bad, it’s come alive.’ I purposefully used words that sound remarkably similar because it adds to the feeling of everything being a bit too familiar. Staying the same, but not quite, they have been changing in a very sly way - they are not what they seem.
The verses are made up of two chords, which repeat in a loop (F# and E). Throughout them, the melody line is the same but changes very slightly. My vocals sound quite soft and muffled and it is difficult to understand what I am saying. I wanted it to be like this, because it amplifies the uneasy feeling I am trying to get across to the listener and makes for a bigger contrast between the start and end of the song. The first time around, it goes from the pre-chorus back to the verse, there is no chorus. This adds even more tension, as the pre-chorus ends on a line that sounds haunting and mysterious, begging for release. However, this does not happen until the second time around, when the chorus finally comes in. With its long, sustained notes it asks: ‘do you want it back against the wall?’ which creates an explosion, releasing all the emotions that have been building up throughout the song and makes for the perfect resolution/end to the story whilst still leaving the audience with the feeling of disorientation, but this time somehow familiar.
I am happy with the structure and the melodies in the song and I really like the atmosphere I managed to capture in this live performance. I still have not settled on exactly what all the lyrics are going to be. However, from here, I plan to develop and tweak little details, to then record a proper version of this song on logic, to hopefully release as part of my first EP.
Here is my performance for the Formative Assignment:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15_hULJyeq-0QhyDY2sbOatMu_XEjd3QR/view?usp=sharing
(The recording cut out at the end of the solo, so here is another link to the last chorus):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15m0jhzBwsEOzuHaJ4gs-5F76OmcuSwWl/view?usp=sharing